Forty years ago, this Bangladeshi economist founded the world's first microfinance organisation, which has helped lift millions out of poverty. Since winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, he's been relentlessly calling for a new form of capitalism, based on social business, entrepreneurship, and altruism.
“We are all natural entrepreneurs” might sound like the slogan of a big investment summit, but it's actually the personal mantra of Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel prize-winning godfather of microcredit. Since the 1980s, his grassroots Grameen Bank has helped millions of families escape poverty, with a simple but powerful formula: lend them small amounts of money, free of interest, for them to start their own micro-enterprise. Today his organisation lends over 2,5 billion dollars a year to 9 million women across the world, 98% of which is paid back.
At 77 he's still going strong, and ready to take on the broader problems of unemployment, environment, and extreme poverty. With his 2017 essay, A World of Three Zeroes: the new economics of zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero carbon emissions, he shares his vision of an alternative economy, built on the surplus generated by the current one, which he believes could help the poor earn a decent living. He also proposes that we re-imagine capitalism as a whole, this time on a sounder footing.
Yunus is both a utopian and an unabashed liberal, keen on fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship wherever he goes. So does he really want to reinvent capitalism, or simply soften its edges? We asked this tireless optimist, who is never short of practical advice.
Do you think microfinance can change the way capitalism works in general?
Muhammad Yunus: As things stand, capitalism doesn't work. It's a ticking bomb, a major crisis is pending. Capitalism is currently rooted in a misunderstanding of human nature, which tells us that we're driven by our own interest and nothing else. That's not true. H…
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